The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3)

by Edmond Barrett

  “Carol, we do not have proof that the Landfall force has a fuel shortage. Not absolute proof,” Ewald said.

  “And we won’t get absolute proof,” Berg replied. “But my ship was alone and deep inside a mass shadow. A squadron of cruisers would have been enough to hunt us down. It was an easy kill and they didn’t take it. No, we have better information than Messenger or Herald and we must pass that information on. Captain Ewald, once Black Prince has finished refuelling, you are to escort the Ohio back to Junction and inform Admiral Fengzi of developments. I will make for the Spur at best possible speed and –and hope for the best.”

  ___________________________

  10th May 2069

  “Jump in complete,” Colwell reported, “we’re on target.”

  “Understood,” Crowe replied, “Coms, signal Dauntless to tuck in tight and be ready to manoeuvre.”

  “Dauntless acknowledges, sir.”

  The battered fighter carrier was already in closer to Deimos than normal safety margins would allow. Equally, their jump in was far closer to the rest of the fleet than would be acceptable under any other circumstances. Two days of repairs out beyond the heliopause, where at the very least there was no threat of attack and the carrier was ready to resume operations, just as long as they could get her back inside the fleet’s perimeter before the Nameless could react. Ahead, the fleet’s fighter screen distended outward to meet them, while around them debris from the Worm’s most recent attack still dissipated.

  “That was well timed,” Crowe said, half to himself, as Deimos slotted back into her place in the fleet’s outer formation, while Dauntless continued inwards to her place. One of the barrage ships and a cruiser squadron were moving clear, on their way out to the supply fleet.

  “Bridge, Coms. Sir, signal from Flagship, a piece of housekeeping.”

  “On my screen,” Crowe replied before reading down. Most of it was a tactical update, with a summary of the twenty hours Deimos had been out of the line. There was also a transfer order for the two fighters again currently in Deimos’s bays. They were to go back to the carriers. It was disappointing but not surprising. There weren’t that many fighters left now. The carriers had enough berths for most of them with the balance earmarked for the most robust of the battle line ships. He’d spoken only briefly to Lieutenant Commander Shermer, enough for them to congratulate each other on their respective feats. After that, with no official position in Deimos’s table of organisation, she and the rest of the flight crews had disappeared into whatever bunks they could borrow and were likely now the most rested people on the ship.

  “Lieutenant Colwell,” he said unclipping his seat. “I’m going below. Send someone down to Lieutenant Commander Shermer to inform her she and her flight are to return to Dauntless. No point launching just for the transfer. We’ll launch when an attack comes in or it is their turn to join the screen.”

  That had been one of the things that virtually every captain in the fleet had been forced to learn here at the Spur. To get off their bridges and get themselves some rest. Before the war, it had been expected that battles would be a few hours of intense action, preceded by perhaps a few days of build up. But here at the Spur, as the days became weeks, he’d had to accept he could not stay on duty twenty-four, seven. To try would mean being useless when the action really did come.

  He could have chosen to eat in his own cabin but instead went to the main canteen. In gave an opportunity to see and be seen by the crew. Once he waved down any attempt to come to attention, there was a certain amount of carefully chosen questions from the junior members of his crew.

  “No one knows, Mister Long,” he replied between mouthfuls to one such cautious question. “There are three things the Nameless need to sustain their fleet: fuel, ammunition and enough transportation to get those to their fighting ships.”

  “Fuel is the easiest of the three. They can get that on this side of the Rift from many gas giants and while we have been able to mine the orbits of any such planets within several systems of here, they undoubtedly had stockpiles built up.”

  “Transport is the next problem. They have a lot of transport ships but most are gateships and those gates cannot be put in a combat zone. So the Nameless are being forced to base their operations outside this system, wasting time and fuel transitioning warships in and out of the combat zone.”

  “The final and most important factor is the ammunition. Without missiles they can’t fight and to get missiles, they must re-establish a connection to their home worlds. All they have is whatever stockpiles they had on this side of the rift.”

  “We haven’t seen them use mass driver missiles in days,” remarked a sensor rating.

  A few people around the table winced. Those missiles had always been a rarity but when used their potential for catastrophic damage was horrifying. No one on Titan had stood any kind of chance when they were hit.

  “Well, you wonder what the bastards – sorry, sir – the enemy will do when they really do run out,” ventured another rating.

  “They will have to cut and run,” Crowe replied. “Even they cannot fight without weapons.”

  “It’s what they’ll do when they’ve nearly run out that worries me,” said another rating.

  He mumbled it but everyone heard him. Crowe opened his mouth to reply just as the main alarm went off.

  “Hold that thought,” he said as a mass scramble began for the hatch .

  “Report!” Crowe ordered as soon as he entered the bridge.

  “Enemy ships jumping in, bearing three, three, four dash zero, two, seven, range thirty thousand kay.”

  “Guns stand by, get those fighters… wait! Sensors, confirm range at thirty thousand kilometres?”

  “Confirmed, sir!”

  Well inside plasma cannon range! The Nameless knew what kind of abuse human ships could hand out at such distance. With the ships still phasing in, the tactical count remained uncertain and composition unknown.

  “Bridge, Coms. Signal from Valkyrie, firing instructions.”

  “Transfer to Fire Control. Guns, engage in line with those instructions,” Crowe replied without taking his eyes off the holo, trying to figure out what the Nameless were attempting.

  No, the Nameless must have made a positional mistake and jumped into the wrong location. Plasma bolts were now pouring out from the ships on the port side of the Home Fleet’s formation. One of blips blinked out as it came far enough into real space to be struck by half a dozen plasma bolts. Tactical started to establish a count, a dozen escorts, six cruisers and two cap ships, all near stationary from the jump and formed into a shallow arc. Another escort vaporised under a salvo from the battleship Yavuz Sultan Selim. The remaining ships began to accelerate hard, but not away from them or on evasive manoeuvres. No, instead they were powering in.

  “Oh shit,” Crowe said quietly as he realised the Deimos was at the focal point of the half arc formation in which the Nameless had emerged.

  The readings from the passives sensors showed every ship was red lining its engines. There was also order in the formation. Each of the larger ships had at least one escort between them and the Home Fleet, shielding the larger vessels. The smaller craft were being torn apart by a maelstrom of fire. Most never got a chance to fire but they were buying time for their larger compatriots, time to ready their weapons and obtain targeting locks. Sensors were showing infrared spikes as the larger ships prepared to fire.

  While their escorts died, the larger ships swung out from behind them and, as one, simultaneously emptied every one of their launchers. Seconds later, one of their cruisers and a cap ship were destroyed, but the salvo they’d sacrificed more than a dozen ships for was off and away. On Deimos, the bridge holo flashed red as the computer registered that their course was set to converge with the cruiser.

  Crowe’s eyes widened in horror.

  “Evasive manoeuvres!” he bellowed. “Fire Control, everything on those missiles! Point Defence, commence, commenc
e, commence! Countermeasures full spread!”

  But the short-range launch meant Deimos’s computers hadn’t had enough time to track and prioritise the incoming missiles, now heading for them at full burn. Like the escort ships before them, the smaller dual-purpose missiles were out in front, sacrificing themselves to screen the cap ship missiles following behind. Other ships were now switching target from the fleeing starships onto the incoming missiles, but precious seconds had been wasted. The salvo melted away as it hit a hail of counter fire. Out ahead, one of the barrage ships belatedly opened up and consumed a few tail end Charlies, but as he watched Crowe realised it wouldn’t be enough.

  “All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

  ___________________________

  On Warspite’s holo the Deimos briefly flashed damage codes then all information disappeared. The surviving Nameless ships were accelerating away. Not many would make it clear but on the holo, another group of icons was appearing on the opposite side of the fleet. This time the target was obviously Deimos’s sister ship, Io.

  “Fleet heading change!” Lewis snapped. “Bows down seventy degrees, maximum fleet acceleration! Navigation, calculate immediate jump to number four quadrant!”

  With his orders issued, he could only look on as the fleet began to react. The barrage ship Brahms twisted out of formation to bring its broadside to bear and commenced firing to cover Io. Their intended target denied them. Twisting and losing ships as they came on, the Nameless formation threw themselves at the Brahms.

  Forgotten by friend and foe alike, the blip showed Deimos astern, continuing to drift on her last course.

  ___________________________

  Alanna screamed as she slammed into the rim of the hatch. When the alarm had sounded she was sleeping and it had taken her sleep-fogged brain a moment to figure out where the hell she was. Coming out of the cabin she collided with Schurenhofer.

  “To the fighter!” she’d roared as the two of them disentangled.

  Climbing up and out of the centrifuge, she’d felt the ship’s guns begin to fire. When Deimos started to take violent evasive action, the two of them were thrown back and forth as they tried to pull themselves along the passageway. Grabbing an electrical junction box, Alanna launched herself at the next hatch, just as the entire universe seemed to explode. Everything twisted violently around her. Abruptly, instead of the hatch way opening, she was going toward the rim. Flailing desperately she tried to avoid it but there was nothing to grab. Pain exploded across her shoulder and chest as she hit unyielding metal and a moment later Schurenhofer cannoned into her from behind. Then all the lights went out. A moment later the red emergency lighting came on. Alanna barely noticed as she writhed in agony.

  “Jesus, Skip! Are you all right?” Schurenhofer exclaimed.

  It was seconds before the pain unclenched enough for Alanna to answer. By then, Schurenhofer was performing a basic medical examination.

  “I think you’ve broken your shoulder, Skip.”

  “Of course I’ve fucking broken it!” Alanna gasped.

  Schurenhofer was already pulling a first aid kit off its wall mount.

  “We need to…”

  “Shut your yap,” Schurenhofer muttered. “We have to immobilise this.” Alanna gasped in pain as Schurenhofer got the sling into place. “We’ve got to get you to sickbay.”

  “No, get to the fighter,” Alanna grunted.

  “Skip, you can’t fly with a broken flipper!”

  “Shut up and feel it.”

  “What?”

  “The engines, they aren’t firing.”

  Schurenhofer laid her hand flat on the deck. There was usually the faintest of vibrations. Now it was totally still.

  “Generators aren’t running either. That means both the reactors are off line,” Schurenhofer said in a sick voice.

  “Get to Jolly. See if she’s still operational,” Alanna gasped as she pulled herself round with her good hand.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The bridge. Find me once you know the situation.”

  Signs of damage were everywhere but with her intercom not tuned to Deimos’s command grid, she couldn’t hear anything. She passed several groups of crew, some obviously injured, others attempting to make repairs. It was obvious that confusion reigned. Finally she reached the bridge. The hatch had warped and two damage control ratings were trying to force it open with a pry bar. Alanna leaned her own mass into it and slowly the hatch gave way.

  As soon as she pulled herself onto the bridge, she knew that they would find no one alive. The only light was from survival suit status displays – every one of them was red. The main holo was simply gone. Something had ploughed across the bridge, through anything or anyone that got in the way. Glancing to port, where Lieutenant Colwell and his section should have been, she could see the stars through the ragged gash in the hull.

  She’d known most of the men and women that had served on the bridge when she’d been stationed on Deimos. Now she determinedly pulled herself past them without looking. Better to remember them as they once were. One though she had to check. The command chair was bent over but still in place, the seated figure within it, motionless. Pulling herself over with her good hand she gently pushed back the Commodore’s head. There were two ragged holes in his chest and blobs of blood floated in front of him. Crowe’s expression was one of surprise. When death came for him, he hadn’t had a chance to feel it. As Alanna hung there in front of the corpse of a man she’d respected, but one she’d known had doubts about her. She felt her eyes begin to sting – for him, for all of them, to have got from the war’s start to so close to the end... After a last look back, Alanna made her way out. There was nothing she could do here.

  “The Commodore’s dead?” the junior lieutenant looked young, frightened and completely out of his depth. After reaching Damage Control, she’d finally got her suit tuned to the command frequency but there was only the one officer left to report to. The ship was in a state, cables had been ripped from their mountings, metal had crumpled like tinfoil, most sections seemed to have lost pressure and what was left of the ship’s systems were obviously running on the emergency batteries.

  “What have we got?” Alanna asked. “Or more importantly who have we got? Where’s Commander Bhudraja?”

  “He took a smack to the head, ma’am,” replied a petty officer. “He’s alive but he weren’t making a lot of sense. Heavy concussion I reckon. We got him down to sickbay.”

  “The gunner?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Alright, so what will we do?” Alanna asked turning back to the Lieutenant. As a pair of frightened eyes stared back at her, Alanna realised she had no recollection of him, which made him a newcomer to the ship. Here and now, he’d just frozen under the weight of responsibility.

  “Alright, we need to un-fuck this situation right now! PO, get yourself down to engineering and get the most senior person still standing up here. You,” she continued, pointing at a random rating, “yes, you, sickbay, I need a report on who we’ve lost. You, Fire Control, tell the gunner to get down here, he’s probably now the commanding officer.”

  When they hesitated she added: “Don’t stand there staring – fucking MOVE!”

  “There you are boss.”

  Turning, Alanna found Schurenhofer with the crew of H for Humble.

  “Well?”

  “Glad to see you too,” Schurenhofer replied, when Alanna gave her a get-on-with-it look. “Jolly’s dented, but the board is still green,” she continued. “She’s still space worthy.”

  “Humble and the entire port side hangar are gone, though,” added Lieutenant Stein, Humble’s pilot. “Jolly might be okay but we need to open the hangar doors before you can launch.”

  Alanna smiled slightly bitterly and wiggled the fingers of her injured arm.

  “There’s no we, I won’t be flying out.”

  “Boss?” Schurenhofer said.

  “You’re r
ight. I can’t fly. I’m... out. If we can we get Jolly off the deck, then you three head for a carrier. I’ll help here once we figure out who’s in charge.”

  “Boss, I can…”

  “No, Kristen, your place is still on a fighter. Report to me if or when you get the hangar door open.”

  As they left, the surgeon came in, blood streaked up his arms and a face shield still clipped to the top of his survival suit.

  “Shermer, what the hell happened to you?”

  “Lost an argument with a hatch. Not important now. Where are we with casualties?” she impatiently replied.

  “Twenty wounded so far, several of them serious so I can’t stay long. There are only three fatalities that I know of but damage control parties aren’t bringing in any bodies…”

  “The Commodore is dead, as are the rest of the bridge officers,” Alanna told him. “I need to know about the other officers.”

  “Err... Well, I have the Commander, who has taken a head injury. He’ll live, I think but he won’t be in any condition to command anything. The gunner was brought in, he’s dead.”

  “What about the Chief?”

  “Still alive,” the chief engineer’s voice came from behind here. “Although Christ knows how.”

  His suit was scorched and there were cracks in his helmet visor. If he was surprised by Alanna’s presence he made no comment and she rapidly brought him up to speed.

  “The first thing we need to know is who’s in charge,” she finished.

  The surgeon and engineer exchanged a look.

  “Lieutenant Commander, I think that’s you.”

  “You’re not in the ship’s table of organisation but aside from me and the doc,” the engineer continued, “you outrank anyone still standing by a lot. I need to be in engineering and the doc…”